Moving On And Getting Over Are Not The Same

Yes, the title is inspired by John Mayer’s recent song, ‘Moving On and Getting Over’. I came across it on my YouTube homepage. And once I started listening to it, I realized, the guy’s right. In every sense. He got it so right it hurts in all the right places.

It made me wonder about all the times we said we were over someone but we really weren’t. It made me wonder about the times we told everyone around that we were moving on but we really weren’t. Most times, if we were moving on, we weren’t able to get over. And if we had gotten over it, we hadn’t yet really moved on from it. Know what I mean?

Moving On

When something sudden, unexpected and usually bad happens to us, there is only so much time we are allowed to dwell on it for. After that, because such is life and time waits for no one, we have to move on from the incident. We resume our lives, settle into routine again and hope that we will actually forget the incident and let go of it at some point. Moving has nothing to do with getting over. It’s like running away from your darkest secret. You can run as far as you want; but it will never leave you till it leaves you. You can move on and still not let go.

Getting Over

This is the part that we all want to get to. It’s like seeing the light and crossing over to the other side. This is The Promised Land. It’s that part where we officially accept and acknowledge that something happened and that it affected us to a large extent. We acknowledge that it might have even changed us; but, getting over is like changing after changing because of the incident. It’s like a prism. The light that hits the prism is the incident. The light refracted through the prism is the change and effect the incident brings about in us. The spectrum that comes out of the prism is when we get over the incident, finally.

Moving on is like laying down and waiting for sleep to come. Getting over is the sleep actually coming to us. Sometimes, sleep takes longer than usual to come to us. But, eventually, if we wait long enough, it will come to us. Despite all the tears we shed while lying down and moving on; despite all the nights we spent wide awake, waiting for some sort of respite; despite all the pills we take to try to quicken the sleep while laying…sleep will come.

Despite all the voluntary hurt we take on while aching involuntarily, just so we can move on, we will, at some point get over it. It will be like a silent snap in the quiet forest of our minds. We won’t know it till we know it. But, it will happen. And that’s when we can safely say that we are moving on and getting over. Until then, we’re only moving on and trying to get over.